Minnesota

James Scanlan is a Washington attorney specializing in the use of statistics with respect to employment discrimination litigation and compliance. He has forwarded a copy of the letter he has submitted to Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges and Chief of Police Janeé Harteau regarding the recent American Civil Liberties Union Minnesota study of the racial impact of Minneapolis policing practices. I have referred to the ACLU study at several points in »

I have sought in this series to provide a background of relevant facts within which to understand the welter of stories featuring race and law enforcement over the past nine months. This past week the Star Tribune’s Eric Roper delivered another such story, this one with a local angle, in “Push is on for more policing reforms in Minneapolis.” For relevant background to Roper’s story, please see John Hinderaker’s post »

Unfortunately for the people of Minnesota, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton had a free hand adopting Obamacare in Minnesota, and Minnesota has gone all in. Courtesy of Governor Dayton and a Democratic legislature, we have bought into the Medicaid expansion and all the rest. In Minnesota the Obamacare set-up runs under the rubric of MNsure. I wonder how many voters know that Minnesota has adopted Obamacare and that MNsure, c’est ça. »

WUMB’s Saturday morning radio show Highway 61 Revisited devoted its four hours yesterday to a celebration of Mr. Bob’s birthday today. Host Albert O played songs written by Dylan nonstop. Given the limits imposed by applicable law, he filled out the show with cover versions. It was an illuminating exercise. The variety of artists to have covered Dylan is wide. The Band, Solomon Burke, the Byrds, Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash, »

Yesterday’s Star Tribune featured Paul McEnroe’s page-one story “Minneapolis nonprofit tests program to pull teens from terror’s grasp.” Taking off on the arrest of the Minneapolis based Somali six who sought to depart these parts to join ISIS, the article focuses on an experimental program implemented under the auspices of Heartland Democracy to divert Somalis from such a path. Mary McKinley is the nonprofit’s executive director; Ahmed Amin is a »

Minnesota authorities have gone deep in search of taxpayer funds to lavish on Somali immigrants in the name of “outreach.” Someone should probably reach out to the supporters of the local Minnesota based Somalis recently charged with seeking to depart these parts in order to join ISIS, but I wonder if we have a government program in process to help Minnesota taxpayers resolve anger management issues arising from reports like »

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar specializes in avoiding outspoken stands on important issues. She looks for opportunities to lead the way on trivialities calculated to garner broad public support, such as her crusade against the threat to life and limb posed by “The crisis of the detergent pod.” Senator Klobuchar is a reliable vote for the Democratic Party line, but she is quiet about it. She doesn’t want to upset anybody. »

Announcing the indictment on Monday of six Minnesota based Somali immigrants for seeking to join ISIS, United States Attorney Andrew Luger declared that the indictment represented “a Minnesota problem.” He meant that as an indictment of Minnesota. Native Minnesotans are somehow at fault for the irresistible attraction to wage jihad felt by an uncomfortably large number of Somali immigrants in our midst. A disinterested observer might start with the common »

I’ve written here many times about the challenges raised by Minnesota’s large and ever growing Somali population, as in “Somalis say: Show us the money” and “The Somali muddle, once more once.” Today with the arrest of six Minnesota based Somalis for conspiring to join ISIS, we witness another manifestation of a deeply embedded problem about which approximately nothing remotely reasonable is being done. The Star Tribune story on today’s »

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has a certain genius for avoiding outspoken stands on important issues and leading the way on trivial matters calculated to garner broad public support. If she secures a favorable headline or two in the process, it’s no coincidence. It is the true object of her efforts. Senator Klobuchar is a reliable vote for the Democratic Party line, but she is quiet about it. She doesn’t want »

I took a brief look at the indictment handed up this week against Senator Robert Menendez and Dr. Salomon Melgen in “Notes on the Menendez indictment.” Andy McCarthy brings an educated prosecutorial eye to a reading of the indictment in “Obama’s Justice Department charges Menendez…but not Reid.” There is a dearth of intelligent commentary on the indictment. Andy’s post stands out in this context, but not just for this reason. »

Yesterday’s New York Times featured Scott Shane’s long page-one article “From Minneapolis to ISIS: An American’s path to jihad.” Shane explores the departure of Abdi Nur from Minneapolis to join ISIS in Syria. Nur comes from the Twin Cities’ large and still growing Somali community. Shane wanders off to discuss the cases of others who have left the United States to sign on with ISIS. Here is the local angle: »

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 enjoyed unanimous bipartisan support when it was passed out of committee with the sponsorship of Senators Cornyn (R, TX) and Klobuchar (D, MN). Senator Klobuchar’s operative principle is “keep your head down” and it has served her well so far. Nevertheless, something funny happened on the way to passage of the bill in the Senate. As the Wall Street Journal’s Kim »

Yesterday’s Star Tribune featured Kim Ode’s profile of former Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Erwin Marquit. Marquit is dying and Ode is fawning. The source of Ode’s attraction to Marquit is Marquit’s run for governor in 1974 as a Communist. The romance of Communism hasn’t worn off for Ode or her editors at the Star Tribune. Ode’s profile is “Erwin Marquit, state’s best-known Communist, reflects on his life.” I’m sure Ode is »

Joanne Chesimard/Assata Shakur was a member and leader of the cop-killing Black Liberation Army. In 1973 she participated in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in which Trooper Werner Foerster was murdered and Trooper James Harper seriously injured. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout. Chesimard escaped from prison in New Jersey and has been on »

Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison has blocked me on Twitter, so I am unable to follow him. Searching Twitter to take a look at his emissions, however, I found that Star Tribune political reporter Rachel Stassen-Berger has posted an Ellison fundraising letter that she received in which Ellison draws on my Star Tribune op-ed column “Rep. Keith Ellison remembers to forget.” Ellison’s letter responds to these two paragraphs of »

In “For Rep. Keith Ellison, recent protests speak to a lifelong struggle,” the Star Tribune’s Allison Sherry provides an incoherent update on Ellison’s fraught relationship with law enforcement. There are two problems with the article. Sherry doesn’t know what she’s talking about and she simply provides a platform for Ellison to vent. Sherry works to suggest that there is something complicated about Ellison’s views of law enforcement. She writes, for »